


With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair

by Marquise



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2012-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-09 01:15:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marquise/pseuds/Marquise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three times Loras made Margaery laugh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the lj got_exchange. Title taken form Mumford and Son's "After the Storm."

_i._

She wakes at the sound of sheets rustling, the feel of an arm being draped across her waist. She knows who it is without even opening her eyes.

"It's a bit early, don't you think?"Margaery asks, voice heavy with sleep. She raises a hand to her eyes, to rub in the dawn, and turns her head to allow her brother to see her weary smile. 

"Some of us need to train in the yard." Loras looks at her with hair in his eyes, and she's not quite sure if it his or hers, as tangled as they have become. "We can't all be pampered."

She laughs at that, the sound cutting through the quiet morning air. She rolls onto her side, curling an arm under her head. Her brother mimics her, mocking her, and she can't help but remember many such mornings at Highgarden. Her rooms overlooking the gardens, windows open to let in the soft breezes and fragrance, that delicious, fleeting feeling that summer was eternal. Her Septa would always scold them for being late to meals, for lingering too long wrapped in each other's company, but what of it? With the passage of years, all she really remembered where those long summer mornings.

Finding that again, here, in this stinking city was truly a rare and unexpected pleasure.

But she knew that if she lingered for too long now she would be in for far more serious reprimands than those doled out by a Septa. 

"Some of us need to face the Queen Regent," she answers. She stretches her legs under the covers, enjoying the feel of the cool down mattress, dreading the day. "I must sharpen my own sword." She goes to rise, looking down at her brother through her tumble of curls. 

Loras scoffs at the comparison and rolls onto his back, but makes no effort to leave her bed. He closes his eyes and sighs deeply and Margaery, despite herself, falls back against him with a thump.

She still had time. The servants might talk, but what of it? The Red Keep has seen more scandalous things.

Just as sleep was about to take her again Loras reaches out and tickles her side, fingers dancing along her ribs. She screams, slapping at him, laughing till she is sure her handmaidens will burst in.

It is behavior unfit for a queen, but the smile on her lips is unending and oh so sweet, and she forgets for a bit the armor she will soon wear.

_ii._

She's weary, her face aching under the false smiles. The flowers in her hair have started to fall loose, petals fluttering to the ground with every movement of her head.

She catches her reflection in a mirror and is pleased by what she sees. Her eyes look tired but, she thinks, only because she can feel the weariness in every bone in her body.

She thinks of her little husband, long since put to bed, and slides into the chair in front of her mirror. Absently she begins to remove the flowers from her curls.

He's a sweet boy, truly, especially remarkable considering his family. 

_Sweetness is poison,_ she thinks, bitterly. She can't help but feel that Tommen is in for a lifetime of manipulation and sorrow, and a small pang of regret over her own role in that washes over her. _A tactical necessity, this marriage. Nothing more._

That didn't mean she had to be entirely comfortable with it. Margaery lowers her eyes from her reflection and shakes her hair lose, trying to force away all of her cares. Court was wearying enough without bringing those cares into her own chambers. 

The door opens and she swivels in her chair, ready to order her handmaidens to leave her be, for once, only to come face to face with her brother. Under his gaze she collapses into her seat, not really realizing how tightly coiled her limbs were.

Loras regards her with a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "I take it your husband is off to bed?"

"Not now," she snaps, cutting off the possibility of another jab. She's heard more than enough from him in the days leading up to the ceremony; she can recite them all in her sleep. "Shouldn't you be at his side?"

Loras pushes off the wall and crosses over to here, meeting her reflected gaze. "As it happens, you are my charge tonight." He smiles again, and the expression still unnerves her.

"You mock me." She lets the statement hang in the air for a bit, before grabbing at her brush. The movement through her hair soothes her, gives her something to focus on. 

He stops behind her, rests his hands on the back of her chair. Margaery rolls her shoulders back and leans into his touch, his fingers light on her shoulders. It's a rhythmic gesture, infinitely more calming that the brush through her hair. 

"I'm not," he states, and she can hear the barely-controlled anger in his voice. Subtly was not one of Loras' stronger points. _It's lucky that he's skilled with a sword._

"Just," his fingers graze a curl. "How can you stand it?"

She clenches her fingers. "It needed to be done. Would you rather it were Joffrey?"

He grasps her hand and turns her to face him, his expression exasperated. She holds his eyes, reads him and feels her face soften. "You think I'm betraying him, don't you?" 

There is no need for qualifiers. Loras tightens his grip on her hand and she can tell he's just barely keeping himself in check. "It's all just a game for you, isn't it? You and everyone else. You can just forget."

Were it anyone else she fears she would not be able to control herself. But she can see the tears in his eyes and she remembers how it was before. She remembers his sobs, the way his body shook under her hands. She remembers, though it recoils her, how deeply the blood had stained his skin, how she had helped him scrub it out for what seemed like hours. She remembers wiping his tears away with one gentle hand, trying to maintain her own composure, trying to be a Queen, trying not to let any of her panicked fears rise to the surface.

She takes on this role now, again, in these chamber so unlike that dark tent. She brushes the hair from his face, allowing her fingers to run over his chin. Strange, to feel the scrape of a beard there. It doesn't suit him, no matter what strength he is capable of.

"You know that's not true," she whispers, telling herself that it surely isn't. She knows that she's not a hardened shell of a woman like the Queen Regent. "You know I cried along with you."

Loras shakes his head, trying to turn away, and she cups his chin in her fingers and forces him to look at her. His eyes tell her of his loneliness more than any words could.

"You know I must," she says plainly. "It's not disgrace. But sometimes, we can't always act as we want. You know that."

Loras bites his lip so hard she's afraid he might draw blood, but he nods and takes her in his arms, as if she's the one who needs comfort. Nevertheless, she relaxes a bit under his touch. Retreats back to the girl in Highgarden, with flowers in her hair and easy smiles. 

He buries his face in her neck and says nothing. They might have stayed like this, silent and solemn, were it not for her brother's seeming need to forget.

"Do you expect to take lessons with your new husband?" his voice is shaking with the effort to make the remark light and Margaery laughs more out of gratitude than anything else.

_iii._

The maester told her that she should not see him.

Margaery favored him with one of her warmest smiles, wondering if he could see the tears in her eyes or the way her hands trembled. Her stomach was all knots, but she did not come all this way to be turned aside, as if she was too weak to see what had been done.

He lets her pass with a smile that tells her not to expect much and she resolves to prove him wrong.

The room is darker than the hall, with only a sickly tallow candle burning near the window ledge. She allows her eyes to adjust, heart beating in her chest, and moves towards the bed.

_This is him,_ she thinks, remembering the maester's warnings that her brother would be unrecognizable. But even with his face half-bandaged, the skin under melted away, she would recognize her brother. Even crushed she would recognize him, and the prideful way he flinched from her gaze confirmed it.

"You should not have come," the words are strangely even and it goes straight to her heart. It's her brother, burned, but her it is her brother. And yet it’s not. He's not defeated but there is the sense that he's on the edge of it. She remembers all the times his brashness irritated her, how she tried to teach him the value of control. It seems a lifetime ago.

She sinks down onto the bed beside him and reaches out to brush his bandages with her fingers. He flinches for a second but allows it; something else that worries her. She remembers holding her brother in that tent so long ago, how tense he was even under her comfort. Even with her it was a struggle for him to be seen as weak.

She remembers. _We really are alike, deep down._

"You think I wouldn't have? What would you do?" He has no answer to that and Margaery takes his hand, smiling slightly when she feels him grip her fingers. "You'll get better."

He laughs, a hollow sound that does not suit her brother. She never thought she would so miss his rage. Nevertheless, he doesn't let up on the grip he has on her hand. 

"You have to," she continues, trying to keep the smile on her lips. She thinks of her upcoming trial and bites at her lip. She can't burden him with that, not now, but…

"I need you," she says, failing to keep the cracks out of her voice. It almost hurts and suddenly she is very, very tired. "Now more than ever."

Loras is still for a moment, then pulls at her hand, making her lie beside him. Margaery kicks off her soft shoes and allows this, laying her face next to his bandages, resting her hand on his still-beating heart. Every beat rings through her mind. _He's alive._

"I must be quite a sight," he mumbles through cracked lips. "Do you think the Lord Commander will be pleased? Another cripple?"

She closes her eyes. She doesn't want to talk about Lannisters now, especially not in that joking way. Loras doesn't prod her, to his credit, and for a while they lie so still that Margaery wonders if he has fallen asleep.

She cranes her head to look up at him, and raises a hand to brush the tears from her eyes.

He's staring back at her with his good eye. Without a word, he reaches up to brush her cheeks. 

She finds herself, again, back in that tent. Her brother sobbing under her hands, her mind racing for her next plan. Trying to find ways to control his rage. Trying to support him.

She came here tonight for the same reason, and the way he clings to her assures her that she has done some good. But on this bed, limbs weary, she knows that that wasn’t the whole reason. 

And the way he looks at her tells her he knows. Knows that she needs comfort just as much.

He moves his hand down her side, grazing her ribs, then runs his fingers along the small of her back, just as he had done as a child. 

She screams her laughter, her relief, and he joins in.


End file.
